Understanding Climate Denial. Dr. Kari Marie Norgaard Sociology and Environmental Studies University of Oregon

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1 Understanding Climate Denial Dr. Kari Marie Norgaard Sociology and Environmental Studies University of Oregon

2 Paradox: Dramatic alterations to ecological systems identified by climate scientists Significant social consequences Urgency and consensus increase throughout 1980s and 1990s

3 Yet for the public climate change is no more than background noise Why are people so apathetic?

4 Climate Apathy... General invisibility of the problem of climate change in the public sphere: Behavioral change Conversations with friends or family Public priority Public planning process Political action Social movement participation

5 Majority of research presumed information was the limiting factor in public non-response. If people only knew complex science media framing media corruption If people only cared Individualism Greed

6 Existing studies of social response Behavioral approach: focus on individual opinion and behavior (psychology, science communication). Little attention to role of influence of emotions, culture, social interaction or political economy on social response.

7 Climate changes poses two new challenges to civil society and democracy. Climate skeptic movements undermine the centrality of facts and science as the basis for democratic organization ( extreme views of political right) The phenomenon of climate apathy or social inertia. The invisibility of climate change as a pressing social problem (widespread pervasive across society).

8 Stanely Cohen s three varieties of denial: Literal denial: it isn t happening Interpretive denial: It is happening, but its not what you think Implicatory denial

9 the facts of children starving to death in Somalia, mass rape of women in Bosnia, a massacre in East Timor, homeless people in our streets are recognized, but are not seen as psychologically disturbing or as carrying a moral imperative to act... Unlike literal or interpretive denial, knowledge itself is not at issue, but doing the right thing with the knowledge (Cohen p. 9).

10 What looks like public apathy... is socially organized denial. Our failure to engage is active and collectively produced

11 Theoretical strands (social psychology cognitive dissonance, role of identity, affect on cognition) Role of emotions in shaping social action Emotion norms, emotion management Sociology of culture/political sociology Construction of political talk, shared and reproduced norms of conversation, collective constructions of cognition and meaning Political economy Economic relationship of state and oil dependency.

12 Why Norway?

13 In Bygdaby the possibility of global warming was both deeply disturbing and almost completely invisible, simultaneously unimaginable and common knowledge.

14 Climate change as an issue people had to: sit themselves down and think about, don t think about in the everyday, in between is discouraging and an emotional weight. They experienced what Robert Lifton calls the absurdity of the double life (1982), a phrase I adapt in coining the term double reality.

15 I often get afraid, like it goes very much up and down, then, with how much I think about it. But if I sit myself down and think about it, it could actually happen, I thought about how if this here continues we could come to have no difference between winter and spring and summer, like and lots of stuff about the ice that is melting and that there will be flooding, like, and that is depressing, the way I see it.

16 The Why of Denial: People want to protect themselves a bit. A series of Troubling Emotions Guilt Individual and national identity Fear of the future Ontological security Helplessness Self efficacy, identity

17 We go on vacation and we go shopping, and my partner drives to work every day. We feel that we must do it to make things work on a practical level, but we have a guilty conscience, a bit of a guilty conscience.

18 Guilt I find that there is a kind of guilt because the way we live, culturally the way we ve been raised, is so contrary to our ideals in a lot of ways. You can be against global warming to a certain extent, but we re still heating our homes and driving our cars and shipping our food long distances. It s really hard to live in a social context and be aligned with your beliefs on the environment.

19 We have now come so far that we have begun to see that to protect or not to protect the environment we are living in, in one hundred years it s possible that the environment will be damaged to the point that it isn t possible to live on earth any more, you know? Fear of the future

20 Fear of the future When I heard Bill McKibben speaking, and they talk about the tipping point, fear comes in with helplessness, Oh my god, there is nothing.... I found out, you know, we re 50 years away from the worst; we haven t even felt the effect of what we are doing now. It makes me think, We can t do anything, it s already beyond help, and then there s the fear. American Student

21 Helplessness I think that there are a lot of people who feel that no matter what I do I can t do anything about that anyway. (Norwegian) That s, like, where I feel the most helpless; it s like I know all this stuff, I have all this information, [but] what the hell do I do with it? I don t know where to turn, I don t know who to talk to. Yeah, I can write my congressman a letter, but in all honesty... I am not sure that one person can make such a difference. (American)

22 Individual and National identity Climate Change poses threats to both individual identity and national identity.

23 Emotion affects cognition Individuals may block out or distance themselves from certain information in order to maintain coherent meaning systems, desirable emotional states or a sense of selfefficacy. Sociology is relevant for the study of denial because it draws our attention to the political dimension of emotions such as guilt. Sociology also matters for the process of ignoring...

24 Cultural Norms of Attention, Emotion and Conversation Social norms of attention, conversation and emotion are powerful, albeit largely invisible social forces that shape what we actually do think and talk about and feel...

25 Selective attention We Can t Dig Ourselves into Depression, Right? Controlling Exposure to Information An activist described how she reads very little of the details, that it is in fact better not to know everything. you have the knowledge, but you live in a completely different world.

26 I don t allow myself to think so far ahead It s terrible to think of, that we live so well while others live in such miserable circumstances. Of course it s very good to have a comfortable life... I enjoy it... but I feel so bad about the others. I have a guilty conscience, that s why I try not to think about it, keep it at a distance...

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30 Emotion, cognition and political economy Oil and gas production increased threefold in the ten years prior to my time in the field. In 2008, the oil and gas industry accounted for 26.6 percent of the national carbon dioxide emissions. Eivand Hovden and Gard Lindseth: Norway, an already wealthy and highly developed country, built a very significant fortune in the 1990s from the very activity that has made stabilisation of CO 2 emissions next to impossible (2002, 163).

31 As of 2009, Norway was the world s fifthlargest oil exporter and the second-largest exporter of natural gas Norwegian wealth comes from oil production via state operated oil company and taxation scheme. Norway s state petroleum fund worth $457 billion US in % of national revenues from petroleum industry

32 In Conclusion... Must understand that climate change is a problem of a new order. More disturbing, more difficult to understand (science, media, direct experience, time and space). We have a profound desire and ability to ignore it. Requires collective action, yet uniquely difficult to mobilize.

33 Significance of literal denial immediately understood: Oil companies and segments of the pubic are disputing facts. Facts matter for democratic decision making...

34 Significance of implicatory denial more difficult to imagine... Implicatory denial flies in the face of the idea that the facts matter.

35 Climate denial, globalization and democracy

36 What will it take to Imagine the Reality of climate change? Micro: Sense of possibility, hope, personal strategies, options for engagement Meso: Community engagement (social norms, networks breaking isolation, opportunities and incentives) Macro: Strong policies, social movements and political leadership

37 Questions?